Isn't the basic problem with government is it's morphing Into something else?
Hubbard said this:
"And I don't see that popular measures, self-abnegation and democracy have done anything for man but push him further into the mud. Currently, popularity endorses degraded novels, self-abnegation has filled the Southeast Asian jungles with stone idols and corpses, and democracy has given us inflation and income tax."
I also remember his discussing that while he thought the best form of government was a benevolent monarchy. The problem he discussed on the tape was that of succession. What if the successor was not benevolent? I don't recall his offering up an answer, though I think the answer was making his tech and policy inviolate, thus his "benevolence" could go on forever.
Perhaps he thought of himself as such a benevolent monarch, the reality was that he was a dictator. I presume he was a believer in much of what Scientology freedom and spirituality could deliver, or he was OCD on the subject, and could never cease tweaking it. Miscavage however, ceases to place the delivery of the technology at the apex, but it after donos.
Thus Scientology has morphed into something else despite Hubbard's KSW.
But back to the point of government morphing into something else.
It seems to me that in case of a populist or democratic government, either will evolve into a repressive one because there is no mechanism to prevent special interests from inserting their policies into the government. Hubbard has tried to circumvent that though it seems he hasn't succeeded.
In Scientology DM has radically changed Scientology from the subject I came into in the sixties. While Hubbard tried to deliver his technology and indeed protect it from the ravages of time. To do so he had to become a dictator to some extent, but there was this club atmosphere that I enjoyed. Under Miscavage, it turned into a soulless bureaucracy, though it doesn't really fit that definition:
noun: bureaucracy
a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.
Bureaucracy refers to both a body of non-elective government officials and an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Wikipedia
I guess the current version of Scientology's demeanor is that of a bureaucracy, implacable it it's insistence of the rightness of it's position, the following of it's rules exactly, to the exclusion of other viewpoints, situations, which is unfeeling an veneer over the fascist iron fist - as opposed to Hubbard's velvet glove on an iron fist. He knew the importance of maintaining the illusion of flexibility to making the public tractable, such with this "you can always write Ron" etc. I doubt Miscavage much cares to maintain the illusion.
The question in the back of my mind - how will it evolve when Miscavage is pushing up daises?
Mimsey
Just some thoughts as I'm reading this:
The basic problem with government is it always morphs toward being more authoritarian, until there is an upheaval that corrects. The Founding Fathers were well aware of the history of Rome and the cycles of civilization. The creation of the constitution was such an upheaval and that is why it is specifically designed to resist authoritarianism by creating a balance of power and decentralization. And this is why they specifically did NOT create a pure democracy or European type parliament. They created a constitutional republic.
Self-abnegation = The first thing you do when you sign Scientology contracts and waivers.
Degraded novels = Mission Earth
I believe LRH used the exact term "benevolent dictator" and not "monarchy" when describing the best form of government. But I have little doubt that if LRH came from royalty he would have gone with "monarchy".
LRH did place much emphasis on the importance of preserving Scientology with effective sane succession but like everything else...he lied. Doh!
Yes, LRH was OCD about perfecting Scientology as a con whereas DM is OCD about perfecting other things because he doesn't understand Scientology as mind control and must resort to crude force. Just my opinion, I think Scientology was designed by and for OCD people. Who else would get so enmeshed in all it's intricate nuttiness to spend decades in it? I say this with no disrespect to OCD people. It just seems pretty self-evident to me.
I don't see much difference in Scientology as a subject over time. It was always a constantly changing group behavioral control "technology" and self-conflicting going from Dianetics to Scientology to BT/Demonology. True, the emphasis on it's use has changed from the technology itself to donations and monument building but even LRH started that ball rolling with the Safe Environment Fund so even there it is still "Scientology".
I would suggest that Scientology's ultimate goal was always KSW. The KSW policy and all the other utterances comprising fundamentalism define Scientology more than Scientology defines KSW. If Scientology was just a means to establish fundamentalism and the fundamentalism hasn't changed then Scientology hasn't changed and any changes made by Hubbard or DM become sanctioned and incorporated into the fundamentalism under KSW. In other words, whoever is in control can do whatever the hell they want and that is still Scientology.
As for the "club atmosphere" from an earlier friendlier period, I can say that I observed this in missions and orgs that were not under heavy Sea Org control but anything remotely looking like dilettantism or purely socializing was at best only begrudgingly tolerated in the Sea Org and since the Sea Org was the ultimate expression of organized Scientology I think we can assume that LRH always intended to phase out any club atmosphere in favor of Sea Org authoritarianism. The club was always on borrowed time.
I completely agree, LRH wore a velvet glove over his iron fist whereas DM does not and to those of us who saw his work up close it was a very thin, scratchy and tattered glove at that. But I contend that if LRH felt he had the freedom to dispense with the glove he immediately would have. The program just needed a little more time.
I don't understand why people continue to make some distinction between LRH and Miscavige's operating procedure by referring to some earlier gentler romanticized time period under LRH's direction. This is only illustrative of a person's respective experience, relationship and knowledge of things at the time. All of LRH's ultimate ambitions were already evident a long time ago. The GO was created in 1966. Just what do we really think Mary Sue and Jane were up to all that time? It's not like he just woke up one morning and decided to create his own black ops division.
https://scientologymoneyproject.com/tag/guardians-office/
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In 1966 and 1967 Hubbard created a secret intelligence-gathering and psycho-terrorism unit within the church. This secret part of Scientology became a “cult within a cult” answerable only to Hubbard. In its first embodiment, this secret unit was called the Guardian’s Office.
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